


To our wasted youth

by LadyKG



Category: Naruto
Genre: Fix-It, Gen, Sort Of, Time Travel, twist on it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-23
Updated: 2017-08-23
Packaged: 2018-12-19 01:58:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11887509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyKG/pseuds/LadyKG
Summary: “Are you sure this is going to work?” Sakura asks even as she sets her scroll - tied with the red ribbon Ino had given her - onto the seal array.





	To our wasted youth

“Are you sure this is going to work?” Sakura asks even as she sets her scroll - tied with the red ribbon Ino had given her - onto the seal array.

“The timing could be a few days off,” Naruto mutters, his whiskered cheeks splattered with ink. A distinct crease between his eyes deepens further as he sits back on his heels. “If we had more time-“

“We don’t.” Sasuke interrupts, scroll in hand. “There’s no point wishing for the impossible.”

Naruto snorts, “Like time travel?”

Dark eyes stare back, tight around the edges as her teammate forces a blank expression. It had been his idea originally. A shock, to say the least. Normally it’s Naruto to throw out seemingly impossible plans, but Sakura can’t say she hadn’t been hoping for a miracle as well.

Naruto had holed himself up for weeks after Sasuke mentioned the possibility. Scrolls and sealing paper scattered all over the cave, Shikamaru - back when he was around - grumbled about troublesome blonds. Yet, he had spent more time with Naruto during their research than sleeping. But the logistics of sending back a living person, or even just their memories, they found too complex and demanding. Too much chakra. Too much time. Too much risk.

“Genin days, right?” Sakura says to break her boys out of their slumped forms.

“I can hardly remember being that young,” Naruto smiles, lopsided and not reaching his eyes but there.

“Don’t you mean stupid?” Sasuke raises a thin eyebrow.

“Like you’re one to talk,” Naruto shoots back. “At least I wasn't a vengeful bastard.”

“Better than a dead-last idiot.”

Sakura can’t stop the smile that tug softly at her lips even if she wanted to. Her muscles ache with the motion, so opposite her usual expression that it feels tight and awkward to let it grow.

“You too never change.” Her voice comes tasting of hope and nostalgia. Of days learning to tree climb and d-rank missions. Of tinkling bells and promises.

“You’re right.” Sasuke nods, “Naruto really is still an idiot.”

“Hey!” Naruto shouts, but it isn’t hostile and he doesn’t bother trying to banter back. His gaze, empty like their sky, scans endless patterns over their work at his feet.

Sasuke is the last to place his scroll.

“I told her to look up Tsunade,” Sakura says. “And to take training seriously.” She sets herself into position, seal released and green eyes hard with resolve. (There’s more, of course. So much more in that small scroll that she can hardly believe it all fit. But it is important, so important, that her younger self understands the cost of her innocence. The cost of living.)

“I told him that orange is still the best color, and that the bastard isn’t all that bad.”

“Dobe.” There’s a smack and Sakura doesn’t have to look up to know what happened. Doesn’t _want_ to for fear that the burning in her eyes will become too much to hold back.

“Bastard, what was that for?” Naruto snaps, “I was talking about the fox.”

“Hn.”

“Well?” Naruto presses when the silence drags on, “What did you write?”

“To avoid a certain blond nuisance.”

Naruto huffs, “Whatever, don’t tell us.”

And Sakura looks up then, because this is it. This is the last time she will see her boys, and damn the tears she is going to drink this moment up. It’s one of the last things she will ever do, after all.

“Ready?” She asks, and is more than proud her voice doesn’t crack.

“Yeah, I’ll see you all on the other side, dattebayo,” Naruto beams, an old smile. The kind that breaks around the edges and pulls drying lips to bleed.

“Let’s just hope this works,” Sasuke places his hands onto the sea, eyes deactivated.

“Here’s to hope,” she murmurs.

“To our precious people.”

“To your wasted youth.”

Sakura can’t help the snort, even as the chakra in her - seal and all - is sucked dry, “What, are you Lee now?”

The words get lost, too late to receive an answer beyond the echo of three bodies hitting a rocky floor covered in charred paper, and missing three scrolls.


End file.
